I have been more than a little bit obsessed with romance novels, erotica, and romantic fanfiction for most of my life. It started with sneakily checking out books from the library and skim-reading to get to the “good parts,” then moved on to scouring Archive of Our Own, Fanfiction.net, and other glorious sites for all of my slash fic needs, no matter how niche (Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini, anyone?), and now, at long last, I can finally say that I am a proud sex nerd and devourer of all things romance and sexuality.

Given this extensive history, I think it’s safe to say that I couldn’t have been more excited to sit in on this year’s GeekGirlCon panel A Geek Girl’s Right to Erotica. This panel was the first live episode of the certifiably awesome Podice Rippers podcast, hosted by Natalie Warner and Lainey Seaton. When not podcasting “at length and girth” about romance novels, Natalie and Lainey are a cyber-security technical writer and an account manager, respectively. Together, they host a podcast that is an incredibly funny and thoroughly geeky exploration of all things romance, smut, and erotica.

No matter how hard I try, I have never managed to be a part of a truly epic D&D campaign—or any other tabletop system. I’ve been playing various tabletop games since I was around 15, so nearly half my life, but they all seem to peter out for various reasons. Now, I haven’t given up and am actually scoping out a new game right now, but in the meantime, thank goodness, there’s The Adventure Zone, a biweekly D&D comedy podcast that dazzles my dice.

The Adventure Zone features three brothers, Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy, along with their dad, Clint. The brothers are well-known in the podcast sphere thanks to their hilarious and successful comedy advice show My Brother, My Brother, and Me from the Maximum Fun network. Griffin is our Dungeon Master, since at the beginning of the podcast he had the most D&D experience, and so the trio of player characters is made up of Justin as Taako, an elf wizard; Travis as Magnus Burnsides, a human fighter; and Clint as Merle, a dwarf cleric.

Hey again! Shubz here, still kickin it in Room 202 live blogging at Expressing Your Creativity Through Audio with Julie Hoverson, Gwendolyn Jensen-Woodard, and Rhys Torres-Miller!

Note: They’re speaking to this from the audio drama perspective, but it can be applied to other genres of podcasting.

Learn to do the tech work yourself.

It is time-consuming. If you want to get it right and share your creativity, take your time, and invest your time.

You can podcast inexpensively. You need (at least) a laptop and a mic.

Find your audience. It will be slow unless you want to pay for advertising. Keep in mind, that paid advertising doesn’t not guarantee more listeners and fans.

Network with other podcasts. Offer to do a review of their show. Be a part of the community.

Voice acting:
Reliability: Don’t over-commit. Commit to what you realistically can do.
Find out how much work you ACTUALLY need to do to complete it.
No one goes into voice acting because you love to entertain.